Printing Is Just Part of What We Do

As a full-service printing firm, we provide many business-to-business services you might not expect to find under one roof. Yes, we print just about any business form imaginable, but we also provide many collateral sales and marketing services to help you grow your business.

Here's a list of some popular services we provide.

Welcome to Our Amazing Resource Library!

Did you know we have a large collection of online resources available for your creative inspiration? Our free resource library includes creative graphic design ideas, sales and marketing solutions, management ideas, and best practices for managing a successful company.

When You Need Help, You Can Find it Here

Got a question about printing or need some help preparing your files for print? You might not know much about printing, but we do, and we're only too happy to share that knowledge, experience, and advice with you. After all, we want to make sure you look good on paper.

Important Details

Not Your Ordinary Neighborhood Printing Firm

To say Gerald Printing purchases and prints on beautiful papers for businesses around the world is very true. That's the essence of what we do - but it hardly tells the whole story.

We’re So Much More Than What We Print

We're not just enthusiastic printers of business forms and sales and marketing materials, we're dedicated graphic arts professionals who seek to use our creative skills to improve the results of your printed documents and sales and marketing materials. How can we help you reach your goals?

Designing for Color-Blind Viewers

What does your design look like when viewed through the eyes of someone that's color blind? Not everyone can see all colors, but they do need to be able to recognize what different colors can mean on some signs, particularly safety signs and notification signs. While accommodating color blind viewers is not yet a universal requirement to assist those with this disability, many countries do require such an accommodation. This means there is a precedent for constructing design work in this way.

If you are asked to design something for color blind viewers, it can be done. Here are some ways you can approach it.

Consider the different types of color blindness when preparing printed materials for this segment of the population:

Protanopia

Red, orange, and yellow don't appear as brightly to these people. These colors may appear as black or gray to them. People with protanopia also have difficulty telling the difference between violet, blue, lavender, and purple.

Deuteranopia

People with deuteranopia cannot distinguish between red, yellow, and green. These colors all look the same to them. Unlike people with protanopia, however, they do not experience the colors appearing dimmer than they really are. They experience the full brightness of the colors they see.

If you're not color blind, how can you experience what color blind viewers will experience? Photoshop can simulate that experience with these two proofing commands:

These commands allow you to see the way designs will look to people with the two types of color blindness listed above. Once you know how a color blind person will actually see your design, you can use all of the other Photoshop tools at your disposal to adjust the design as needed. This will help you design documents and signs that are truly viewer friendly to color blind people.

The most important thing to remember is that for most people with colorblindness, it is not so much distinguishing one color from another that is the problem, as it is differentiating between shades and brightness levels of similar colors. You can do your colorblind viewers a tremendous favor by making colors bright and never mixing gradients of shades of a color on a document or sign.

Another helpful thing for colorblind viewers is having some kind of visual texture, especially on infographics. If you are creating a graphic chart, for example, and it uses different colors, try putting some light or dark bands across some of the bars or pie wedges on your graph. Even if your colorblind users can't distinguish the color, they will know what is what on the chart by the visual textures.

Finally, try to avoid using any signage that requires identification of something by color alone. This is a popular design trend that many people think makes things simpler, but it is a nightmare for colorblind viewers. Always include some kind of accompanying text, so if a colorblind person can't distinguish a color, they can always read the words.

Public signs are the most common types that need color distinction to convey messages, although some private signs may rely on this, as well. Keep the differences in mind on how color blind people view various colors, whether they can see those colors at all, and how those color perceptions will impact their ability to interpret the print. Use this knowledge to design the print appropriately, and your buyer will be satisfied.

This best-selling guide from authors Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas has been the go-to tutorial and reference book for photography/design professionals and the textbook of choice in college classrooms for decades. This edition includes their trademark features of clear, concise, step-by-step instructions; hundreds of full-color images; screen captures of program features; and supplemental tips and sidebars in every chapter.

Among the new CC features covered in this extensively updated guide are: Smart Sharpen, Adobe Camera Raw as filter, intelligent upscaling, multi-shape and path selection, and camera shake reduction. New and updated Photoshop CC features are clearly marked with bright red stars in both the table of contents and main text.

e-commerce summaries

Instant Online Pricing

How many times have you visited a website, looking for a product, only to get frustrated because no pricing information is available? Not on our website. Our instant pricing tool is simple to use. See quickly how each decision you make—from paper stock to ink choices to bindery and folding options—affects your bottom line. You'll get a quick and accurate price every time.

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Online Estimating

Need an estimate on a printing project, before you commit to having it done? Whether you're planning a simple piece with few requirements or a more complex project that involves advanced services such as design, bindery, mailing, or marketing, we'll provide a quick, accurate estimate to help you plan your budget.

Online Ordering

Order your printing safely and securely straight from our website. Our order forms make it easy, and reorders are a breeze. Plus, you can track your orders all the way through to completion and view your complete order history anytime. If you order the same printing products frequently, ask us about creating a document library to save even more time.

Send a File

Everyone uses the Internet to exchange information. But what if the information you need to exchange is in the form of a huge graphic file? No problem! Our website lets you send files of virtually any size effortlessly and securely, without the hassle of a traditional FTP. Plus, our email confirmation and online job tracking system eliminate the worry of not knowing if the file made it through.

Online Proofing

We all want things to be quick and easy, don't we? Our online proofing system is both. In addition to the instant proofing options available with uDesignIT! and FastTrack, we provide online digital proofs for orders that require them. When a proof is ready, we email a link, so you can view the proof securely on our website. While there, you can approve the proof, reject it, or suggest changes - all from the same secure screen. What could be simpler than that?

Customer Portals

The first time you do business on our website, we'll automatically create an account for you in our Online Print Center. There, you'll be able to track orders, view order histories, update credentials, view proofs, and reorder your printing. We can even create a branded portal for your entire organization if you'd like, complete with branches, document libraries, company managers, order approval hierarchies, custom notifications, inventory management, and more.

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Document Library

The document library is our term for the set of online order forms unique to your company or to specific departments or branches within your organization. Each item represents a specific printed piece. For example, if you have 10 different printed forms that get used throughout your company, you'd have 10 separate document library items set up - one for each form. Document libraries make it easy to order, track, and inventory your most frequently used printed items.

uDesignIT!

uDesignIT! makes it easy to personalize "templated" items, such as business cards, that are unique to your organization. Items appear as part of your document library and include an instant proof that updates automatically as you fill out the form. Changes are not limited to text alone. Images, backgrounds, colors, and fonts can all be made variable, as well, for even greater flexibility.

FastTrack

Want a simple way to send us your digital files without worrying about fonts and images getting left behind? Want to "print" your files straight to our website from within any program-even if we don't have the same software, version, or fonts as you? Want to rest easy knowing your printing will look exactly like what you see onscreen? Want real-time feedback that lets you troubleshoot and eliminate production snags before they happen? Of course you do. We can help.

DesignEdit

If you're looking for beautiful design in a hurry, DesignEdit is for you. DesignEdit provides thousands of ready-to-use templates you can personalize to create print pieces for yourself or your company, all from the comfort of your own computer. No special software or graphic arts degree required. The DesignEdit online editor allows you to personalize the templates with graphics from our library of over 14 million high-quality images. You can even add your own text and images if you prefer. Either way, the end result will be a beautiful creation as unique as you.

resource summaries

The Ideas Collection

We all have times when we could use a little inspiration in our work. If you're running short on ideas, we're here to help with articles and insights meant to ignite your creative fire. From marketing tips to creative how-to's, you're sure to find something to spark the imagination.

What's New?

We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. Unfortunately, trying to keep track of all that data can be overwhelming. Twice a week, we provide executive summaries of some of the most interesting articles and posts we find from popular business websites and blogs.

Our List of Greatest Treasures

We all have websites we rely on every day for information relevant to our businesses and lives. Then there are the exceptional sites -- the ones we stumble on occasionally that are sooooooooooooo good, we make sure to save them in a special place for future reference. Over the years, we've built up a pretty good trove of website gold, and now we're sharing that bounty with you, our customers.

Popular Graphic Arts Software

Keeping track of the latest software upgrades is enough to drive anybody crazy... unless you have access to our easy-to-use list of the most popular graphic arts software. What a helpful reference tool!